So you’re planning the details of your wedding, and you’ll have more than a few out of town guests. After you’ve scoped out some accommodations proximal to the festivities– and a couple of price points are thoughtful to offer– you should contact the properties to block off some rooms. Be sure to ask for a discount! Now, have you thought about a welcome gift for your out of town guests? If you haven’t, you should!

The welcome bag is a nice way to say “thank you” to friends and family who are traveling to be with you on your special day. It’s also a good way to provide useful little snacks and sundries, and information about the venue and surroundings. Most couples I’ve talked with really enjoyed putting this together for their guests.

A Philadelphia Welcome

We were recently guests at a wedding in Philadelphia, and were delighted by the thoughtful welcome bag and note from the bride and groom. The bag was designed to welcome us to Philadelphia, the bride and groom’s home, and they wanted their gift to reflect their passion for the city. A specially-made bag with a custom line drawing of the city’s skyline included note cards by the same artist, and an assortment of “Philly-made” treats. Other thoughtful items included morning-after Bloody Mary fixings and some Advil to aid in our recovery from what was promising to be an awesome party!

Why a welcome bag?

Quite simply, to show your guests how much you value them, and appreciate their being a part of your special day. As an out of towner on that memorable weekend, I felt the Brotherly Love from our hosts, and a heightened anticipation of a good, good night. It did not disappoint!

Trends that should maybe stop being trends, or at least need to be more thought-out than many realize – Part one in a (possible) series:

Trend #1 The “let’s all spend a fortune to rent a house for the weekend” bachelorette party trend.

I get the whole bachelorette party thing, I really do; why should a let-loose night of fun with friends be the domain of the boys? I’m not sure, however, when this whole thing morphed into a multi-day extravaganza that’s a potentially huge expense for the bridal party.

If you are in a wedding, and you won’t listen to your mother, maybe you’ll consider these considerations from me:

1. Are you SURE you want to spend an entire weekend together? Would one afternoon, an overnight and a great brunch maybe serve the purpose? If everyone’s all hung over after the first night, you really might spend the next 24 hours waiting for it to be over. Takeaway message: think it through.

2. Who exactly is doing the planning? One person? A bunch of you? Is the bride involved, or is it largely a surprise for her? Make sure there’s a point person who knows the bride’s wishes, and is a GOOD COMMUNICATOR in addition to being organized. You can’t pull this off in an ongoing group text (or cluster-you-know-what).

3. If you decide to forge ahead with your well organized point person who is a good communicator, get FIRM COMMITMENTS from everyone you hope will come. Firm commitment means GET MONEY from them. It’s really easy to say “I’m in” over a group text, and it’s equally easy to bail when you haven’t put money down (“I just realized I have to go to my cousin’s shower that day”).

4. Be creative and tap all your resources. You can’t know what resources people have to offer if you don’t TALK with each other! Does someone have a relative with a rental property or time share? Would your aunt at the beach consider moving out and giving you the house for the weekend? Would it be just as fun to stay in the bride’s cousin’s New York apartment but spend on a limo for the weekend?

5. Remember “in season” is WAY more expensive than off season for rentals. A house in The Hamptons will be untouchable in July, but in April you have a pretty good shot at affordability.

6. If you go for the weekend in __________ (fill in the blank Nashville/Vegas/AC/New Orleans), keep an eye on your bride, please. I spent the better part of a night in Nashville worrying about a trashed bride-to-be whose friends were nowhere in sight. Have a plan, people! There are predators out there just waiting for groups of gals like you.

7. Once you have the date and the place, plan out every detail. Who will make the itinerary? Lock down all reservations, know what things will cost, and decide who is paying for what. Planning a bachelorette weekend requires serious event planning, or there may be misunderstandings, disappointments, and unforeseen expenses.

Good luck and have fun, but remember, for the bridesmaids this is just one of many expenses required when one agrees to be in a wedding party. If the dress is a fortune, the wedding requires a hotel, and you are expected to pitch in on the shower, there is no rule that says the bachelorette party has to be scaled to reality TV proportions.

“I’m not engaged yet, but I’m pretty sure I will be soon. Is it weird to start having conversations with my boyfriend and with my mother about the kind of wedding I’d like to have?”

No, not at all. In fact, the more communication that goes on before you’re engaged, the more joyful and stress-free the engagement period will be.

Most couples start talking about their future life together long before “the proposal,” and that’s a good thing. Once you start having those conversations, you will likely start to share your wedding thoughts with each other, and maybe even with your mom. This is good! The more communication that goes on before you’re engaged, the more joyful and stress-free the engagement period will be.

It’s especially helpful to open the line of communication about money so you can dream within a budget. Some questions to ask your parents: Have you thought about what kind of wedding I’ll be able to have? Will you host a wedding for me or should I plan to help financially? I’d like to start planning; is there a budget I should have in mind?

If you’re reading this as a future mother-of-the-bride, you know it’s just a matter of time until your daughter is engaged; otherwise, why would you be on this site? If you’ve been observant, you can tell it’s coming, so now is the time to have a conversation with your husband, or your daughter’s father.

Some things to discuss: Are we prepared to pay for a wedding? How much can we afford? Will we share this expense with our daughter and her fiancé? Be prepared when the happy day is announced so your daughter’s announcement isn’t received with a look of blind panic.

What I’m getting at is that if engagement seems inevitable, now is the time to start thinking about the financial aspects of a wedding.

The best advice at this stage is to communicate openly, honestly and realistically about money. When parameters are set and expectations are clear, everyone’s happy!

How do you begin to pick a wedding date? You (or your daughter) probably have some idea of the time of year you would like to be married, but the time of engagement may dictate whether or not that will happen. For instance, dreams of a June wedding may not be realistic with a January engagement—not enough time for THIS June, and too much time til next.

When looking at the suddenly daunting task of setting the date, the bride and groom should sit down together and ask themselves these preliminary questions:

1. What kind of wedding do we want? Religious or nonreligious? Large or intimate? Sooner or later?

2. How deep is our faith? Is a religious ceremony important to either of us?

3. Where will we do this? The bride’s home town? Where we live now? Our college chapel?

4. Who will pay? Are we OK with parental control, or do we want this to be all ours?

As you can see, this will lead to some bigger conversations—make sure you have them! Regardless of how well you know each other and how deep your love and commitment, prepare to compromise.

Following this conversation, several possibilities will unfold.

You will either

*start with your place of worship and go from there, or

*decide on a religious ceremony but not in a specific place of worship. In this case, your phone call should be to a priest, rabbi or minister and see what the “rules” are. Or you may choose to

*decide on a nonreligious ceremony, in which case you can start with reception venues and let them know you will also have the ceremony there.

This is often the point where girlhood dreams get a dose of reality. This isn’t necessarily a negative.

My daughter dreamed of a beach wedding at a relative’s remote beachfront home. But she also wanted a fairly big wedding with all her college friends, which didn’t mesh with the beach dream. She moved on, and because she met her fiancé in college and shared so many friends, they were married in their college chapel. Lovely!